


Distraction

by fishnet



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Common Cold, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Sickfic, Sneezing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishnet/pseuds/fishnet
Summary: The prince was not at the top of his form today. Raiden frowned, wondering what was distracting him. Usually the young man worked hard at his fencing lessons, as if determined to compensate for the times when he was too ill to attend.
Relationships: One-Armed Veteran Swordsman/Delicate and Sickly Prince He's Training
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Distraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kisuru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuru/gifts).



The prince was not at the top of his form today. Raiden frowned, wondering what was distracting him. Usually the young man worked hard at his fencing lessons, as if determined to compensate for the times when he was too ill to attend. It wasn’t shirking, he knew; it was a weakness of the constitution that left Fin susceptible to every fever or sniffle that went around the castle. His vulnerability made every such affliction a misery as well, leaving Fin unfit to fence or ride for days.

And yet it wasn’t like him to fail to pay attention. “Shall we do it again?” Raiden said gruffly. “Get your blade up, and come at me.”

“Yes, sir,” Fin said, raising his blade, but his eyes were over-bright, and abruptly Raiden became aware that the flush in the young man’s cheeks wasn’t the result of the cold morning air in the courtyard.

“No, put it away,” Raiden said. “You’re sickening for something, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” Fin said unhappily, “I refuse to be—” He ducked his head abruptly into the crook of his arm and exploded into a sneeze violent enough that it sounded as if he’d been repressing it for some time. “Not again,” he muttered, and scrubbed at his nose with the back of his hand.

“I think you have a head cold coming on,” Raiden said.

“You may be right. I woke up sniffling, and my head aches. But I can finish the lesson.”

“There’s no sense in making yourself really ill,” Raiden said, and held out his hand for the practice sword. Fin handed it to him reluctantly, and followed Raiden to the armory to put the blades away. It was easy, now, to handle the blades one-handed, though back when he’d lost his left arm at the elbow, everything had seemed awkward. The long recovery had given him a sympathy for others’ burdens that he’d lacked as a young man.

“You must think I’m useless as a student,” Fin said. Raiden suspected that reflected Fin’s father’s sentiments. The old man felt it a personal failing to have a son who was so often ill in bed. Raiden felt there were worse things, like being an unfeeling old fool.

“I think no such thing,” he said. “You’re a fine swordsman when you’re well, and it’s hardly to your discredit that you’re not well.”

“Even so—” Fin began, and then sneezed again, and then, more violently, again, a harsh, throat-scraping sound. He waved a hand to abandon speech for the moment, blowing his nose instead into an already-crumpled handkerchief.

“Get some rest, and we’ll resume when you’re well again.”

Fin gave him a rather different sort of look, stepping forward well inside Raiden’s guard. “I would rest better in your bed.”

“It’s hardly proper,” Raiden protested, torn between the desire to offer comfort at the moment and his perpetual guilt over their illicit relations. It was true that Fin was a man grown now, and had been the one to make advances, but Raiden felt certain that Fin’s father would fly into a rage at the idea that his heir had been seduced by an armsman.

“Am I a fine swordsman, or a weakling child too young to know what’s good for him?”

“You’re a nuisance when you twist words to suit yourself,” Raiden said fondly. “All right, come up. Your father won’t be back from the capital for another week, so I suppose he’ll never know where you spend the day.”

He kept a protective hand at Fin’s back while they climbed the ladder to the armory loft where Raiden slept. Fin let Raiden settle him under a blanket, and did in fact look comfortable there. Raiden tossed him a fresh handkerchief, which he expected he’d need, and then lay down and offered his left shoulder for Fin to lean against, getting his good arm around him.

“I’m not dying,” Fin said. “It’s just another head cold.” Still, he leaned gratefully on Raiden’s shoulder. “Do you know what else might comfort me?” he asked after a while, his voice teasing if hoarse.

“Young nuisance,” Raiden said. “It won’t help to wear yourself out that way, either.”

“I won’t exert myself too much,” Fin said, and shifted so that his hand rested on the crotch of Raidan’s trousers. Raiden let Fin work him without participating, attempting stoicism, and finally groaned in resignation and unfastened his trousers to free his cock. “We’ll both just lie here,” Fin teased. “It’ll be very restful.”

There was something perversely appealing about trying to move as little as possible while Fin brought him off, unable to either speed the process along or stop his arousal from building. He thought Fin liked that, to have a strong man helpless in his grip, shuddering as the urge to spend mounted—

“A moment,” Fin said in a choked voice, and sat up, groping for his handkerchief and holding it poised for an interminable moment. “No, I might be all right—”

He exploded into a sneeze, and went on sneezing, one following the next until he was red-faced and breathless, his eyes streaming.

“You should be resting,” Raiden said, feeling ashamed of himself.

Fin dried his nose and eyes. “I’ll be ill with this cold no matter what I do. You might as well distract me from it. Unless you’re too put off by my unattractive state?”

“I’m not,” Raiden said, although his desire for some relief for his aching cock warred with the desire to bundle Fin up in the blankets and hold him protectively until he was well again.

“Then distract me,” Fin said, and wrapped his hand around Raiden’s cock to stroke him while Raiden tried once again not to thrust or grapple Fin to him or bear the other man down under his weight. It didn’t take long for him to reach the point of urgency again, the climax threatening to break over him with every stroke, but eluding him right on the edge of satisfaction.

“Harder,” Raidan gasped finally, and Fin breathed a laugh and tightened his grip, and Raiden let himself thrust up once, hard, into Fin’s hand, and came with a groan of satisfaction and relief.

“Now you,” he said, and opened Fin’s own trousers, working him swiftly and gently to the climax he could see the young man already urgently wanted. He saw the signs that the young man was about to spend, and bent his head to suck him down, tonguing the young man’s cock until he came and drinking down the bitter result.

“That’s good,” Fin said, his voice heavy now with weariness.

“Now rest,” Raiden said gruffly, and pulled the blanket tighter around Fin. The young man’s cheeks were still fever-bright, and he felt warmer than their gentle exertions should have left him, but his breathing was even, and he seemed content where he lay tucked under Raiden’s arm. Raiden was starting to doze when he felt Fin’s breathing flutter.

“Not _again_ ,” Fin murmured miserably, and crumpled into a wrenching sneeze. “My head is splitting.” Raiden smoothed Fin’s hair back from his forehead.

“You’ll survive a cold in the head.”

“If I have you to look after me until I’m well,” Fin said, his tone teasing again despite the hoarseness of his voice.

“Young nuisance,” Raiden said, and settled Fin back against his shoulder again to sleep.


End file.
